It looks like I'm starting a Northern Nevada/Northern California chapter of AMGRASS. Just waiting on the paperwork to make it official.

I'm now looking for a good place to get cheap 12" orange cones. I have a friend in construction who may be able to help but he's out of town til the weekend. A timing system is about $700 (not bad at all considering it includes the display). So then just need some folding tables, clipboards, and copies of membership forms. And then most importantly, someplace to hold events (and insurance).

I've been posting this to the Northern Nevada ADV Google Group if anybody nearby wants to join (link in my sig).

I like those, and for $35 I think they're worth picking up a set (or two). But the problem is that Reno has really nasty winds that tend to blow through after lunchtime. They can gust upwards of 25 mph and those little discs would just blow around. I think we'll need real cones for it to really work, but I do like those little ones to use as "non-penalty" markers.

I'm thinking of taking the route of doing courses more like the police competition ones, but with not quite as many cones. And boxing the cones with gypsum like they do in autocross. It seems simpler than having to have a bunch of cones in different colors and having people have to remember that one color means go this way, another color means go the other way, and stripes on them mean other stuff. Just seems darn confusing.

I prefer the low cones since I feel I can get closer to them and maintain a better line without worrying about hooking the cone. There is a fair point to be made that they are more dangerous than the tall cones if you run over them, and you could make the argument that navigating tall cones without knocking them over is a better standard of skill. Since I'm not going pro or anything, I prefer choosing a line around a low cone and just making sure I don't put my contact patch right on top of it.

I know the Euro standard cone size is 45 cm (or about 18"). I still prefer the 12" due to lower cost, lower height, lower weight, but still heavy enough to not blow over easily. And like MotoMind said, you can lean farther without fear of hooking them. I guess I'll wait and see if AMGRASS requires 18's or if we can use 12's.

Lots of questions about cones........
Currently we have about 8 types of cones, and I can say one thing - DO NOT BUY PLASTIC CONES

They are made like crap, not much better than a Solo cup, and almost have no value - and most imprtantly they are very dangerous. Cheaping out? get some tennis balls. About as cheap and solid as you can go.(Used balls anyway)

PVC - the way to go, size matters but get what you can afford - we are using the 18" standard orange cone at AMGRASS

Speaking of AMGRASS, we had a meltdown and accidentally deleted most of our members, so if you cant login, please sign up for another account with the old username, and PM if you have any issues - sorry for the inconvenience.

Yep looks like 18" is the standard, so that's what I'll order. Upside is that's the same size they use in autocross, so if I ever wanted to sell them (or switch to autox events), I'll already have the correct equipment.

Dredman... if you want help running the forum or anything like that, let me know. I used to run about a dozen different powersports-related forums. Got out of 'em when I grew bored of ATVs and haven't seen the need to start any new ones lately. :)

It's quite amazing. I was looking really hard for rear braking, gear change etc but saw little if anything of either. I can't believe he is controlling speed round the cones just on the throttle, or using front brake. Scary.... must watch again.

I'd do this in Indy in a minute if we could get it organized! I think it'd really help people (including me ) learn how to better control a bike and be a safer rider. My only concern is how to get started. I'm not sure where we could find a spot to practice.

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Any empty parking lot with decent pavement would do. If you haven't done anything like this before, you don't need a big space to start running simple drills such as figure 8's. As simple as they sound, 8's are quite addictive especially once you are trying to improve your own time or your friend's.